Who's the bonehead?

Shumlin concedes his own comment was boneheaded, but he can't help himself

Nov. 18, 2013

Former Gov. Howard Dean (left) shares a laugh with Gov. Peter Shumlin (center) and Sen. Richard Mazza, D-Chittenden/Grand Isle, before groundbreaking ceremonies for a new footbridge along the Long Trail that will cross the Winooski River in Bolton on Monday, September 16, 2013. The first phase of bridge construction can be seen across the river to the left. / GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS

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Free Press Staff Writer

His first year in office, Gov. Peter Shumlin said very few of the kind of foot-in-mouth things everybody thought he would say when he got elected. Then he got more comfortable being governor. Now he's calling his own state workers boneheads.

This is Peter Shumlin desperately trying to prove he’s a regular guy. That’s why in 2012 he told us a little too much information about being chased by a bear when he was bare naked. Why he buddied up to a down-and-out neighbor and then found himself entwined in a land deal that backfired. Why he wants you to know he snagged an six-point buck last weekend.

Regular guys do things like calling other people boneheads. Governors generally don’t, though. At the pace he’s going, one can’t help but think he’s going to hang his political self with one of these comments someday.

Along with being rude, the boneheaded comment, which he made last week in Bennington, was wholly unnecessary. The governor termed boneheaded a decision by the Agency of Transportation that roadside signs celebrating the Mount Anthony Union High wrestling team in Bennington violated state law. Shumlin could have simply told Bennington residents he’d look into the decision, but instead he climbed on board an unsteady soapbox.

As it turns out, the sign issue appears to have been much ado about nothing. Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd told the Bennington Banner late last week that the signs should be back up this week, moved slightly so they will be out of the state right-of-way and legal.

In other words, in Peter Shumlin parlance, the sign scandal is a “nothing burger,” the term he recently invented for problems with the health-care exchange that he later had to admit had become “something burgers.”

Shumlin now concedes the “bonehead” comment was “boneheaded,” but he clings to the concept that he was on mark.

“It was a boneheaded remark,” he said in an email response provided Friday by spokeswoman Sue Allen. “I think my AOT crews are the best in the nation. But I have been very frustrated with how this situation has been handled. When communities are supporting their kids and celebrating 25 years of winning a state championship, that’s not the time to rain on their parade.”

“The Agency of Transportation and town officials are working together to find a good location for the sign.”

According to the Banner, that shouldn’t be hard. Nothing that requires gubernatorial intervention.

But even as Shumlin admits that the comment was boneheaded, he offers no apology to the workers he publicly slighted. He could swing by sometime with a box of cider donuts. That would be a regular-guy thing to do.